Crimson and Gold

Between daytime patrols with the city guard and nighttime role as a vigilante, Saria hardly ever returned to the Palace, and if she did, it was mostly to quickly wash herself and change into her nighttime uniform.

That didn’t stop her, however, from continuing to work on the list given by Drusus.

With Aegon being taken care of, two names remained.

After thorough consideration, Saria decided to go after Demerius.

Compared to the other two, there wasn’t much to the man. Born into the old money of House Pyrius, Demerius inherited the seat in the Senate after his father’s passing from an illness.

He had few interactions with Lysandra and didn’t seem particularly eager to engage with her. Most of his badmouthing was limited to the meetings in the Senate and sowing discord between the officials who were sympathetic to her.

It was quite clear that Demerius was in it for the money.

Getting through to someone like that wasn’t difficult. After all, the only thing more precious than the pockets full of gold was their own life.

Due to this paranoia, however, it wasn’t easy to get to Demerius without being pulled into an open conflict. His villa had tighter security than the Empire’s vault, and it was only sheer luck that an opportunity presented itself when a group of guards was stricken by food poisoning.

Saria used this weakening of security around the villa to sneak in and apprehend Demerius.

As she was patiently waiting for the man in question to wake up from the little nap she had served him, Saria noticed another heartbeat entering the villa.

It was familiar, albeit there was an aura of something more, something inhuman about it, that put her on edge.

She hid around the corner, leaving Demerius tied to a chair right in the middle of the room to serve as bait.

The door let out a quiet squeak as the intruder walked inside. His footsteps were light for someone with this amount of vitality coursing through his veins.

Without wasting a second, Saria jumped out of her cover and rushed at the intruder.

She was so used to the strength advantage her mystic blood gave her that when the man casually pried open her arms, choking him from behind, and tossing her at the nearby wall, the surprise made her more dizzy than the impact against the stone.

That was something that shouldn’t have happened. Not coming from someone being a normal human.

Saria spat the blood that rushed into her mouth and pushed herself up to face the intruder once more.

As they clashed among the flurry of fists, the moon peeked from the clouds, illuminating the room.

Finally being able to see the intruder’s face clearly, Saria froze for a second, recovering just narrowly in time to dodge the fist going straight to her face.

It landed on the wall behind her, creating a web-like crack in it.

Had it reached its original target, her skull would be smashed into a pulp.

Not risking another attack, she hurriedly raised her hands. “Wait! Tally! It’s me!”

“Saria?” The man blinked a few times, staring at her, before finally letting his hand slump. “Oh, for the love of gods… You scared the sunlight out of me…” he said, pressing his chest as if he really was on the verge of a heart attack.

“What are you doing here? And since when did you get so strong?” Saria started questioning the moment they made sure nobody was attracted by the noise.

Tally laughed awkwardly and rubbed his neck. His eyes clumsily avoided the scrutinizing stare from his friend. “What ‘strong’? I’m the same as always. You just got confused.”

Saria stared at him blankly, then turned her head to look at the small crater in the wall, then back to Tally.

Her thoughts were loud and clear even without being verbalized.

The man walked over to the wall and poked at the crumbled stone a few times with his finger. “Ekhm… W-What a shoddy job,” he said, doing a poor job at appearing confident. “Very poor craftsmanship. Yes.” As he was speaking, he kept stealing glances at his friend.

The lie couldn’t be more obvious.

In normal circumstances, Saria wouldn’t let go without learning the truth, however, since Tally was a friend and there were more pressing matters, she decided to let it slide.

There would be another opportunity to question him.

“Why are you here?” she repeated her initial question. “I thought you were working as a bodyguard for some scholar.”

Seeing that he was off the hook for now, Tally relaxed. “I’m tracking down a thief. Someone broke into my master’s house and stole some of his research,” he explained, scratching his head.

Even now, he still couldn’t believe that there was anyone who would want to go through all that hassle for some educated ramblings.

“Apparently, Demerius knows a fence that might have it,” he added and pointed at Saria. “What about you? I thought you were busy with the Princess.”

Saria magnanimously ignored the blatant tease in his words. “I came to have a little chat with Demerius about the dangers of lying.”

Tally didn’t fully catch the meaning of her words, but—as far as he was concerned—it meant that their purposes aligned. “Wanna interrogate him together?”

A smug smile appeared on Saria’s face. Her eyes shifted to Demerius, still tied to the chair, still seemingly asleep. “It’s about time to wake the Sleeping Beauty up.”

They approached their target slowly. Despite the ruckus they caused and even Tally giving him a few hearty slaps, he appeared to be still completely out.

Knocking someone out was as natural as breathing to Saria, so there was no chance that she accidentally put him into a coma. She was even more convinced she didn’t do anything wrong, because she could sense his heart rate.

In short, Demerius was pretending to be unconscious.

Saria folded her arms on her chest and stared down at the noble.

“Are you sure you didn’t accidentally kill him?” Tally asked.

“I don’t kill on accident. Besides, he’s still breathing.”

“Then why isn’t he waking up?” her friend wondered. “Should I slap him harder?”

As he said it, Demerius’ pulse quickened.

Noticing the change, a cunning smile appeared on Saria’s face. “Mm… Maybe… Or we can start pulling his teeth out. That always gets them to pay attention,” she mused.

Just as she expected, the man’s heart rushed in panic.

“If we pull his teeth out, then it will be really hard to understand what he’s saying.” Tally, completely unaware of Saria’s intention, still managed to play right into her plan. “How about we break his fingers instead? I have seen it done to one guy once, and he was in so much pain he peed himself.”

Hearing the frantic drumming coming from Demerius’ chest, Saria nearly beamed his friend a smile. It looked like all they needed was a tiny little push…

“Breaking twenty fingers is too much work,” Saria said and reached to her side to unsheathe her dagger. The blade came out with a dramatic schwing that put even more weight on her next words. “Let’s just harvest his family jewels. Less work and there’s no way he sleeps through that.”

As she took a step towards the man, Demerius suddenly jolted up.

“Waaaaait!” he screamed at a shockingly high pitch. “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! No-no need for torture!”

Saria couldn’t hold back a smile any longer. Easy jobs were her favorite.

She put away the dagger and then made an invitation gesture towards Tally. “After you.”

***

Getting the information out of Demerius proved to be child’s play.

The man was so terrified that he gave all of the details and more without Tally even needing to ask.

By the time it was Saria’s turn to deal with him, Demerius, on his own, swore to cut ties with Loukios and never again say a word about the Princess. It was so easy that Saria felt like she was being made a fool.

So, to combat the feeling and prove the gravity of the situation, she broke two fingers in Demerius’ hand. Just to make sure.

“It’s still early, so I guess I’m going to pay a visit to that fence,” Tally said as they left the mansion and hid in a dark alley nearby. “Want to join me?”

“I can’t. I still have something to do.” Saria answered a bit absentmindedly. Ever since they left, she was immersed in her thoughts.

“See you around then?”

Before Tally could leave, Saria suddenly snapped back to reality. “Wait. You said that the stolen research was about prophecies?”

“Yep. It was some ramblings about the significance of prophecies in… in modern… his-historio… historiography. Or something,” he blurted out.

“Is he studying prophecies?” Saria asked, her voice carrying a hint of hope.

The man snorted loudly. “Studying? He’s obsessed with them! He talks about them all the time. I’m honestly impressed with how much a wimp like him can talk in one go.”

“Can you set up a meeting with him?”

Tally looked at her, puzzled. “I can, I think. But why?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll explain to you later. For now, meeting your master is really important to me.”

The chance was slim, but it was still possible that the scholar would know something about the prophecy connected to Lysandra. At this moment, even a crumb of information was better than nothing.

“Alright. If you say so. I’ll send a message once I talk this through with my master.”

After this, Saria and Tally went their separate ways.

For both, the night was just starting.

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